A Reputation for Veracity
by willawow
Summary: Against all hope and reason, Arthur goes on a journey to find his errant manservant after a sudden magical attack and a terrible accident seperates Merlin from the group and leaves him injured and lost miles from Camelot.
1. Chapter 1

"C'mon, now, Harv," Odo called across the mill. He pitched his voice just so to be heard of the churning of the water through the leet below them and the steady rhythm of the wheels meeting perfectly and driving the two stones. "Hurry on now, lad. We've three sacks yet still and your sister'll be having supper on the table, I imagine."

The boy, Harvey, came hobbling forwards, bent nearly double with a bag of grain slung awkwardly over his bony shoulders. He was tired; the day had been hot and inside the mill it had been stifling, to where Harvey had torn off his tunic by the fourth hour and continued the work in his worn braies alone. Looking up at his father, though, Harvey thought it might not have been such a good idea. Odo was looking at him with that strange look of pity again, squinting at the bruises on his chest that he'd garnered from the accident. Harvey let the sack of grain drop to the ground next to the main stone with a loud, weighty _thump!  
_  
"Is something wrong, Father?"

Odo seemed to rouse himself from some day dream. "Of course not, son," he said, smiling.

Harvey smiled back, but was not assured by his father's word. His father was often distant and at night Harvey would have to fetch him inside, pleading with him to come away from the burial mound, beneath which his mother was said to lay. Odo would look at him such sorrow in those moments that it made Harvey want to cry.

It was early spring and outside, along the banks of the rushing river, the apple trees blossomed in an array of soft pinks and riotous magentas. In a few months, the trees would be heavily laden with apples and the house would be full of the smell of baking.

Despite it being early in the year, the mill was thriving as people from the outlying villages drove their carts in, laden with sacks of grain they'd kept safe and dry in their storehouses over the winter. "We need it right-quick," the people would instruct Odo and Harvey would roll his eyes. Everyone always needed it done right-quick. Together, he and Odo set the grain to the stone, and Harvey watched the wheat spin, the miraculous mechanisms grinding the pieces into the fine flour that could be made into breads and cakes, or used to thicken stews in wintertime.

As a miller's son, he knew he should understand the way the wheels connected and turned, the way the stones worked to grind the grain, but he didn't. He would enter the tall, stone building every morning with Odo and would find himself awestruck all over again. It was like the magic that he could feel prickling beneath his skin-wonderful yet still a mysterious and something that scared him a little, if he was being honest with himself.

He'd slipped and used his magic once in front of his father since the man's original admonishment never to practice it. It had proved too much of a temptation and he liked showing his sister the little tricks he discovered he could do, like hovering things in the air with nothing but a thought. She would applaud and smile so widely that he imagined her face might crack. Of course, she never said a word, but she made a great many signs to Harvey, signs he imagined he should know, that suggested that his tricks pleased her. It was one of these tricks that Odo had walked in on. In his surprise, Harvey lost concentration and the ceramic saucer had fallen to the floor and cracked into a dozen or so peices. He barely had a moment to stutter out an apology before his father had him by the back of the collar. He had dragged him outside, breaking off a stick from a nearby apple tree and striking at where Harvey's bare legs stuck out of the ends of his braies. Harvey had tried to dance away from the blows, feeling cowed and ashamed, while at the same time he fought with the magic inside him that was eager to lash out and defend him.

It wasn't fair, he told himself. There was nothing bad about magic, was there?

Odo had dropped the stick, ending the beating just as Harvey could feel the tears prickling in the corner of his eyes, and thrown his arms around Harvey's shoulders, pulling his son into a fierce embrace. "I couldn't stand to lose you, boy," he'd huffed into Harvey's dark hair.

Harvey's anger had died, then, the magic dying along with it, but his legs still stung. "I know," he mumbled in reply. "I'm sorry."

"There we are, the last of it," Odo announced jovially, knotting the last sack of flour. His voice effectively pulled Harvey from his thoughts before the young man truly had time to begin to brood. "I'll deliver it all to Wilby myself in the morning before breakfast. I'll get that old goat to pay me if its the last thing I do. No more trades."

"I could take it," Harvey offered, eagerly. He knew that Wilby the Bodger lived in town, a place he had not been to since the accident, and he was eager to take in the sights. And there was something else, tugging at his chest, tingling with his magic. In his head, he almost imagined he heard a whisper, _Find him, find him. _"I could take the grain to Wilby Bodger tomorrow, Father. Then you could perhaps have time to sweep the chimney, like Aldith's been wanting."

"No, I think not, Harvey. You'd be hard-pressed to get him to pay you."

"I could do it," he insisted. "I can be very persuasive."

"No, Harv, I'll take it. People might see you."

Harvey bristled. Was his father ashamed of him now? Hiding him away from the town so they wouldn't know of his affliction? "What does it matter if people see me?" he snapped. "Won't they be glad to know I've regained my strength?"

"I said no, Harvey, and that's an end to it!"

With the stubborn setting his jaw, he dutifully replied, "Yes, Father. As you say, Father" and stormed from the mill building, stomping across the grass towards their home on the other side of the river. All the while, in the back of his mind, the voice continued whispering, _Find him, find him._

* * *

It'd been almost three weeks since anyone in Camelot had seen Merlin and Arthur had never seen Gaius so despondent. The old man went about his rounds in silence, moving achingly slow through the castle corridors. Always, he would end his run by stopping at Arthur's chambers to inquire if there was any news of his ward.

There never was, but he persisted in hoping against hope.

If Arthur was honest with himself, he would have agreed with the whisperings of the belowstairs servants, and might have allowed himself to take comfort in the words of Lancelot and Gwaine as they sat together in Merlin's old room, sharing stories and laughing. If Arthur was sensible he would have agreed with them all, acknowledged that Merlin was not coming back to Camelot, but Arthur didn't want to be sensible. Merlin had been with him on a patrol of the border, riding his brown mare brazenly alongside Arthur, far ahead of the knights. Occasionally, he'd shout a joke back towards Gwaine-generally at Arthur's expense-and Arthur would histrionically complain about servants being seen and not heard. His manservant seemed unimpressed with the comments, though, and had called him a prat and childishly blew a raspberry in the prince's direction. "If you were worried about servitude, you'd have fired me years ago," he joked. Arthur stayed silent, not wanting to agree.

The border itself was quiet, despite rumors otherwise. Their ride through the woods quickly became a pleasant outing, rather than a chore, with the knights all laughing and shouting, singing bawdy songs and each trying to outdo each other in telling the dirtiest jokes, just to watch Merlin's ears grow increasingly red. It was Percival who won this contest, much to everyone's surprise and chagrin.

The trail followed the side of a deep ravine that dropped hundreds of feet to a rushing river below, swift-moving and frigid still from the spring thaw. On the other side of the path were the dark woods, somehow seeming far more menacing they had a moment ago and Arthur caught Merlin throwing glances into the shadows, following something moving inside the trees that only he seemed to see. Once, though, he caught Lancelot driving his mount suddenly forward to reach out and touch Merlin's arm. A look passed between the knight and servant before Lancelot fell back again. Every once in a while, Merlin's head would snap round to some point amongst the trees, like a hunting dog catching a scent, but rather then seek out whatever was drawing his attention, he would shy further away, moving steadily closer to the cliffside.

The joking stopped as Elyan called out, "Mind your step, Merlin!" before Arthur had a chance to.

"There's something wrong with this part of the forest," Merlin replied, sounding distant. "It's full of ghosts, mylings, and wights. I can see them. They're so angry."

Something in Merlin's eyes made Arthur want to shudder, but he brushed it off. "Aren't you too old for fairytales, Merlin?"

Merlin wasn't listening. He was cautiously moving away from the tree line, eyes wide and locked at some creature only he could see. Under his horse's back hoof, a few rocks dislodged from the cliff face, tumbling down the ravine, so that her back leg was suddenly kicking at the air. The mare threw itself back from the edge with a whinny of surprise and, for a moment, Merlin struggled to control the beast.

"Merlin!"

"I'm fine, we're fine," he assured them, though his heart was still pounding in his throat. He reached down to pat his horse's neck and whispered soothing, magic-laced words into her ear.

"Stay away from the edge," Arthur ordered, driving his mount forward again.

"Aye, sire," he replied, but his eyes never left the forest.

They carried on, following the trail until he began to narrow, so that they had to ride single-file. Arthur cast glances behind him and each time he did he could see that Merlin appeared even more tense. He sat straight as an arrow in the saddle, barely looking ahead at the path in front of him, his focus entirely on the twisting silhouettes of the trees.

It was for this reason that neither he nor Arthur noticed the woman standing in thier path until she suddenly began shrieking. "Traitorous snake!" she shouted, pointing a crooked finger at the group. She was dirty and bruised, her dress torn and head bleeding. A necklace of amber beads and what Arthur swore were human teeth hung loosely around her neck. "You allow the slaughter of your people by keeping the company of murderers!" The magic crackled in the air, causing the hairs on Arthur's neck to stand on end. "Stand up and be counted, you coward!"

Her hand shot out and for a moment Arthur thought that this would finally be the end of him, but then Merlin must have shifted on his mount, moved Arthur just so, because suddenly his manservant and his horse were both thrown off the path by a terrible blast of magic. Arthur shouted as he watched rider and mount seperate in the air, striking against the cliff face, before plunging into the freezing water below.

"Merlin!" called Gwaine and Lancelot, both already frantically seeking a way down to the water.

Arthur, though, could only think of his rage, bubbling inside his chest as he drew his blade, and turned to find-nothing. The witch was gone.

The knights all gathered at the edge of the path, squinting down at the frothy, white waters below them. "I see nothing," said Elyan.

"No one could survive that fall," Leon said, sensibly. Gwaine looked up murderously at his fellow knight, but Leon purposefully ignored him. "I'm sorry, sire. He was a friend to us all."

They searched the ravine anyway, finding the bloodied body of the mare washed up a mile downstream, but never did they find a single sign of Merlin. Defeated, they returned to Camelot. Arthur spent the night sitting across the table from Gaius as the old man wept for the loss of his ward.

Arthur didn't cry, though. He refused.


	2. Chapter 2

"Arthur!" Gwaine shouted, bursting into his chambers with the same flagrant disregard for position as Merlin. "Sire, they have found a body."

Arthur could feel his heart plummet, dropping into his stomach, weighty as lead. They'd all lived in denial, in their own way, each of the knights and Merlin's friends, and himself all clinging to some small hope that the favored servant had somehow, miraculously survived the fall. The idea of their being a body, of the possible end to their hope, made Arthur feel ill. "Is it him?" he managed to croak out. "Is it Merlin?"

"The body was dragged from the waters near a village five miles from where Merlin fell," Gwaine replied. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper; it seemed to Arthur it was a most unnatural thing. "It's said that the man was young, perhaps twenty summers, and dark-haired."

"If it's him," Arthur says, almost to himself, "I'll have to write Hunith."

Gwaine nods. "The knights have already packed. We await your command."

The way he says it, though, it sounds as though they would leave no matter what he said, so he told Gwaine they'd leave in an hour and began packing his things. He did it in half the time that Merlin would have, and somehow that made him ache more.

It turned out that it wasn't only the knights that were packed and prepared to make the journey, but Gaius and Guinevere as well. The old leech sat upon a sway-backed pony, an expression on his wizened features that seemed to dare Arthur to try and forbid him to come along, so the Prince walked by and said nothing. "Your father will be safe in the care of his servants until tomorrow," Gaius said, suddenly, needing to explain himself.

"I'm sure he will."

Arthur was secretly thankful his father was still ill, recovering for all that had happened to him when Morgana had briefly taken the throne of Camelot. It made it so there was no one to tell him that going off on journeys for the sake of missing and probably dead servants was foolhardy and pointless. Arthur already knew those things and he didn't care. It didn't negate the fact that Merlin would have done the same for him, or that Hunith deserved a body for the funeral pyre.

They rode the entire day, stopping only once to eat and allow the horses a moment of respite. It was sunset when they reached the little village where the body had been found. It was bigger than Ealdor, but not by much and as the party rode in the children came out and ran alongside, the little girls offering up fistfuls of wildflowers to the visitors. The whole thing was a like a bizarre parade and made it seem all the more worse when a crochety old man hobbled out of his home, a young boy at his elbow, and said, "S'pose you'll be wanting to see the body, then."

"Aye," replied Arthur.

The old man led them to a little ramshackle barn that hugged the side of the rushing river. As the boy busied himself with opening the heavy doors, the man asked, "You hoping to find someone here?"

"My ward," Gaius replied, while at the same time Gwen said, "Our Merlin."

The doors were heaved open and they all tiptoed into the dark barn. Inside it was as cold and silent as a tomb, but still smelled like a barn with earthy smell of hay mixing with the vile scent of the oxen. On a woven mat lay the body of the drowned man, covered hastily in a discarded horse blanket. No one moved at first, so it was the boy that finally went and squatted next to the body, pulling the blanket back away from the man's face. Everyone in the room seemed to draw in a sharp breath.

It wasn't Merlin. The boy under the blanket was far younger in appearance than Merlin, with smooth features in contrast to Merlin's sharp angular ones, and he was perhaps an inch shorter than Arthur's manservant. The body itself was bloated and blue, the skin mottled and waxy, but the cause of the poor man's death was not plain. Perhaps he'd simply fallen in and gotten caught in the river's strong current, Arthur mused.

"It isn't him," Gwen sighed behind him.

"Praise be," said Gauis.

As if sensing what everyone was thinking, Percival quietly offered, "He could yet live."

Everyone nodded.

"Yes," Arthur replied. "It would be just like him."

* * *

Harvey woke up from a dream where shadowed men, garbed in silver and gold, lay themselves down in tall grasses around him and found himself weeping. It had felt so real and had been so joyous that waking up to find himself in his father's house next to the mill seemed a disappointment. The dreams felt like memories, but he'd wake up and find the names of the men slipping away, the memories fading from his mind.

_It's all right, _Aldith's hands said, as they stroked his hair soothingly.

In a way, Harvey loathed his sister for her sympathy. He didn't want to coddled or fussed over, especially by a eleven-year-old child. Yet, somehow, he allowed it. He found he could deny his family nothing.

The dreams themselves were unyielding and when he and Aldith could find moments alone together, he would tell them to her. Sitting right in front of her and never mumbling, like Odo had instructed him, he'd describe the people and places he could almost remember. Odo wouldn't have understood the dreams, he might have thought it too much like the magic tricks that Harvey had displayed for his sister's pleasure and Harvey had no interest in receiving a beating for _dreams_, though he doubted his father would actually do such a thing. Still, he kept his counsel as he knew Aldith would keep hers and the dreams became like a wonderful secret between them.

It had been this way since the accident. Odo had told him he'd stumbled while walking along the banks of the river and had fallen in. The current easily pulled him into the narrow leet and the magnificent waterwheel had struck him and trapped him under the water until Odo had dropped the sluice gate at the head of the leet and had dove in after him. He had no recollection of the event, or his life before it. All the mechanisms he couldn't name, the people he couldn't recall, the niggling voice in the back of his head were all jumbled together and lost in chaos of his mind. Harvey often felt frustrated at how _little _he knew of himself.

He'd woken up a week after the accident, naked and wrapped in a half dozen blankets, in a bed he couldn't recall sleeping in. His father was leaning over him, smoothing his fringe back from his forehead and smiling down at him while his younger sister, Aldith, sat on the edge of the bed as silent as ever. He'd started when he first opened his eyes. For a moment, he thought his father's shaggy blonde hair seemed familiar, but the thought flitted out of his mind as quickly as it had come in.

"Who...?" he'd started, but Odo had shushed him gently and reached up with his other hand to lay it on his chest. The movement startled him, though, and he felt a a sharp stabbing in his already throbbing head as the magic he'd forgotten he even had leapt out and pushed Odo away, as instinctual as ducking a blow. The burly miller stumbled back, landing on the ground a few feet a way and knocking over a stool that had been set by the fire.

Aldith had gasped at the magical display while Odo had stumbled up, grabbing hold of him by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. "You don't do that, you understand?" he shouted. "They would kill you, rob you from your bed in the night to meet the headman's ax by morning. There's to be no magic here. Understand?"

Harvey had nodded. The weak, injured part of him had felt chastised and small then, but some other part of him, the part that still tingled with magic, told him to sit up straight and hold his chin a bit higher-like a prince. But, as quickly as Odo's anger had come, it receded. He leaned over Harvey once again and said, "Tell us your name, lad."

It should have been easy. He should have been able to open is mouth and have his name fall out, but that's not what happened. Instead he struggled to remember what it was, the way the letters curled around his tongue. Stamping down the panic that grew inside of him, he stuttereed, "I-I don't know."

His father patted his knee with a heavy, calloused hand. "Don't fret. You're safe here lad." He paused, casting a pointed glance over to Aldith before continuing. "We protect you, son, you know that. You're Harvey. You remember. That there is your sister, Aldith."

"You're my father?" he asked, and Odo smiled, nodding.

Harvey was still in awe of that idea, though he couldn't understand why. Like the mill itself, the miller who was his father was something to stand in wonder and amazement at, something to appreciate. He was everything Harvey thought father's were supposed to be-like gods to their children, both loving and fearsome. Someone to both adore and tremble at. That was Odo, who would pat his shoulder, offering a small bit a praise and then chastise him for doing something foolish, making him feel much younger than his nineteen years. He was Harvey could ever ask for in a father and Harvey loved him for it.

It was Odo who minded him that first week after he woke up. He abandoned the mill to help Aldith in making poultices and pressing cup after cup of bitter willow bark tea into his hands. When Harvey would wake up confused and admittidly frightened, not knowing where he was, Odo would be there to quietly remind him. It was Odo who encouraged him to get up and walk around their little house, and didn't make a fuss at all when Harvey was sick all over the kitchen floor.

Still, Harvey healed unnaturally fast and found himself going with his father to the mill by the end of that first week. If anyone in the house thought his recovery strange or miraculous, no one said. Life carried on, and Harvey learned as his little family told him stories of himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Harvey and Aldith sat side-by-side in the grass, picking handfuls of yellow toadflax from the ground, biting the ends off the flowers to suck out the minute amount of sweet nectar and collecting the leaves for later use in fever-reducing teas. They were seated in front of their mother's barrow, and Harvey was squinting at Aldith's hands, desperately trying to divine the meaning of her gestures as she told him the story of her death.

_Beautiful. A beautiful woman,_ Aldith's hands said. He knew this sign, seen her use it to describe nearly everything from animals, to the smell of the air, to the sun in the sky, to how she was feeling on a particular morning and even Harvey himself. It was a wide gestures, where she would draw the back of her hand underneath her chin and smile brightly.

"What happened?" Harvey asked. "Why did she die?"

_She had magic. _This was a good gesture too, Harvey thought. She would flick her wrist in a circle and splay her fingers suddenly, as if displaying an imaginary ball, before bringing the gesture back under her chin. Magic was always beautiful to Aldith. _She had magic and men came and killed her for it. _Harvey nodded, his stomach knotting. "That's why Father doesn't want me doing magic..."

Aldith nodded gravely. _Be careful, _her fingers said, and he nodded placatingly, rolling his eyes. She struck him on the arm and he playfully struck her back, much lighter, but it still started a brief, playful tussle between them that ended only when she threw a clump of wet grass in his face.

Really, Harvey loved his sister, though they coudn't have been greater opposites. Where he was dark, she was fair; where he had began to joke and tease, she was serious. When their mother had died, she'd taken over the role of homemaker and she took her role seriously. She was the most fantastic cook that Harvey could ever imagine existing. He delighted in bringing home fish for her to bake, or spring vegetables that he found growing along the banks of the river so that she could cook them into thick, fragrant stews. "The best cook in the kingdom," Odo would announce, almost nightly. And, indeed, she was.

Odo would tease her, tell her she would make someone a good wife someday, and the comment seemed to please her even though they all knew it would never be. To the rest of the world, Aldith was somehow less. She was a broken thing because her world was of composed of silence, in the same way that Harvey was a broken thing because his world was composed of only the present. Aldith would assuredly never marry in the same way that Harvey became more and more convinced with each passing day that the memories of his past were lost forever.

"Do you suppose I'll remember something someday? Something real?" he asked her.

She shrugged dismissively.

"I keep feeling like I'm somehow lost," he persisted.

She dropped the flower she'd been fiddling with into her lap and reached up to touch his cheek gently, then splayed her long fingers over his beating heart. _You're not lost, you're here,_ her hands said.

He pushed her hand away. "I keep thinking that there's someplace else I ought to be. There's a drumming in me saying, _you haven't made it home yet. Go, Harvey, go_."

Aldith shook her head, and grabbed hold of his hand in a way that was meant to assure him that he was, indeed, home. He smiled at her, noting her concern and deciding he wanted it gone, he asked, "Would you like to go fishing with me?"

So they did, not once sharing secrets about dreams.

* * *

"This is as far as I go."

"Sire?"

"I'm not coming back to Camelot with you," Arthur said. He sat high upon his gelding, looking stoically over at the company of knights and servants that sat clustered around him on their horses. "I cannot simply return home when there is still some small hope."

It wasn't the whole truth. On the ride back from the riverside village, the face of the drowned boy had haunted him. He remembered the cold, sinking feeling that settled in his stomach when he stared at that nameless young man. He'd been someone's son once, someone's friend, so Arthur had found himself digging into his purse to press a fistful of coins into the old man's hands for the young man's funerary man deserved a proper burial; Arthur had made sure there was enough for a few small possessions for the man to carry into Avalon and offered two extra gold coins to be placed upon the man's eyes.

Once again, Arthur was lying to himself. In a way, the money given hadn't been for the boy at all-it'd been for Merlin. Whether or not he wanted to face the possibility that Merlin might have died in his fall from the cliffside, he knew that, if nothing else, the search could not be abandoned. If nothing else, Hunith deserved her son's body returned home to her.

But, oh, what a cruel gift that would be.

"We shall go with you then, my lord," Lancelot replied. "It cannot be said that any man here didn't love Merlin. We'll search with you."

The prince shook his head. "No, Lancelot, I need you men back in Camelot, in case she should need defending since someone tries to destroy her every third day of the month." His attempt at some bit of humor fell short, though, and everyone stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. Feeling more apologetic than any prince had a right to towards his subjects, he continued. "Gaius, my father will need tending to. He mustn't be abandoned to the servants for so long. It could be a very long time before I find Merlin, or am satisfied he can't be found."

"You cannot go alone, sire," Leon said, once again saying the sensible thing.

"I can make it an order, if you like."

Quietly, Gwen slipped down from her saddle, weaving through men still mounted on their horses and moved to stand alongside him. She rested her hand on his knee, looking up at him plainly, so he imagined he could see her every thought flicker over her features. "Allow me to go with you, Arthur," she said. "I have nothing to attend to back in Camelot, and I'm as good with a sword as any man." There was small pause, and a he caught a glimpse of the old Gwen-the shy, nervous Guinevere he'd first fallen in love with-before she leaned in close to him and quietly added, "You need someone at your side."

He nodded, once, curtly, and she returned the gesture, but didn't leave his side that moment.

"Sire, bring me as well," Percival added. "It might be helpful to have one of us with you. I may not have known Merlin long, but he is a good man and I will follow you in your search for him as long as need be."

Arthur sighed. "Fine," he replied. "Since it would seem my going alone means nothing to you people, Percival and Guinevere will join me. The rest of you go back to Camelot. I'll send word when I can."

They seperated there, with Gwen and Percival and Arthur riding towards the dark, ominous woods while the rest of the little group rode off back towards Camelot. Gwen was surprisingly silent as she rode alongside him on the path, and it was Percival who ended up filling the silence, regaling them with stories of his youth and of his family, now passed on. Briefly, Arthur wondered if the knight had come along simply to offer his counsel when it came to their grief over Merlin.

Hours passed, and the three began to relax, daring to offer up a joke in an effort to lighten the mood. They stopped briefly to eat and water the horses where the trail began along side the river before they continued on, the ravine growing deeper alongside them. The forest beside them seemed darker than before, and the gnarled branches of the trees rose up higher than Arthur recalled them doing. "Do you see anything?" he called back to his companions.

"No, nothing," Gwen replied.

"Merlin spoke of ghosts, spectres," he said.

"I see nothing, my lord," said Percival.

"Nor I." In fact, despite the fact that the forest seemed to grow more ominous with every step, like before, Arthur could see no danger in the trees, no movement or sound that would indicate life existed at all in the dark wood that Merlin had so feared. "But, up ahead, that's where he fell." The ground where Merlin and his horse had tumbled over the cliffside was kicked up, the side of the path covered in boot tracks from where Arthur and the knights had marched up and down the banks, squinting downwards to try and catch site of Merlin. Throwing back his shoulders, Arthur purposefully squashed the sick feeling that bubbled in his stomach. "Its getting dark. We'll make camp here and start following the river downstream tomorrow."

They all unsaddled the horses, looping the reins around the thick branch of one of the trees, and carefully began to unpack their things. Arthur lit a fire with wood Percival retrieved from the dark woods while Gwen paitiently began preparing a small meal for them, offering them each bread and while she pulled a bag of beans from her saddle bags and set them to boil with the water from her skin. "It would be nice if I had some onions," she said. "I'm afraid these won't taste like much at all."

Attempting a smile, Arthur replied, "Unfortunately, I don't imagine there are many onions to be had in these woods."

"Will these do?" asked Percival, appearing from the trees behind Arthur with two onions held in his hands.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at the onions. They were perfect specimans: white and round and looking freshly washed, as if they'd been pulled from Camelot's kitchens not moments before. "Where on earth did you get those?"

Percival shrugged. "In the trees, along the side of the path. It was like someone had just placed them there, but I found no sign of anyone nearby."

Accepting the onions from Percival with a small nod of thanks, she began cutting them against a stone"Perhaps it was the ghosts Merlin spoke of," she suggested.

"Ghosts bearing onions?" scoffed Arthur. "I don't think so."

There was the soft _hush _sound of rustling clothing and the three travellers spun around, swords in hand, as a boy stumbled out of the woods. He yelped when he saw them, weapons raised, and dropped the armload of onions he carried to hold his hands up in surrender. He stared at them with wide brown eyes, chest heaving as he struggled for air after the shock. "Don't 'urt me!" squeaked the boy, accent thick and distinctly Western. "I'm unarmed, I swear it!" Slowly, everyone lowered their weapons. "I just heard the lady sayin' how she wished she 'ad an onion, so I thought I'd bring 'er some, is all. See? No harm done."

Arthur shook his head in shock. It couldn't be! Yet there he was, standing in front of him in the fading light of the day looking no more dead or drowned than any one of them. But he was dead; Arthur had paid for his last rites himself.

"Who are you?" Arthur demanded.

"Eni," the boy squeaked.

"How is it, Eni, that I saw you lying dead in a barn just this morning?"

"Well, I'm dead, ain't I?"

Gwen fumbled with her sword in shock, but it was Percival who took a step forward, looming menacingly over the deceased peasant boy. An uneasy feeling crept into the pit of Arthur's stomach. If the ghosts Merlin spoke of existed, what else did? What of the mylings and wights?

Eni, seeming to sense their distress, quickly added, "Oh, I ain't 'ere to 'urt any of you, honest. We're not all bad, in the forest. There's a nice girl there who pulled my soul from the river. Still, I'm more'n afraid o' a few of 'em." Paitiently gathering the onions from the ground, he continued, "I thought you might like to know, though, that the friend you're lookin' for ain't here."

"What do you mean?" Arthur asked, suspicious of the drowned boy standing in front of him.

The boy rolled his eyes at Arthur, offering the onions in his arms to Gwen, who seemed reluctant to drop her sword. "I _mean_," Eni said, in a voice that suggested he thought Arthur rather slow. "He ain't in the forest with us." At the continued silence, Eni heaved a great, put-upon sigh. "Your friend still lives. I saw where he went to, when the nice girl pulled my soul out my body an' led me 'ere."

"Can you take us to him?" Eni nodded. "Then we'll leave at first light tomorrow."


	4. Chapter 4

Eni was almost as obnoxiously cheerful and scathingly sarcastic as Merlin was, and as he led them down the path, following the river, he kept up a steady stream of one-sided conversation. He happily told them of his childhood growing up in a village by the sea, how he father had drowned at sea in a storm but his mother, bless her, had taken care of him and his seven siblings, eventually selling him into servitude. He worked under a cook, in the house of a minor lord whom Arthur had heard of but had never met, being that the man was supposedly the type of person Uther would have sat below the salt and the king insisted that there were enough of those at his table already. While all these events sounded terrible to Arthur, Eni assured him that his life had been pleasant enough.

"T'ain't so terrible, really," the dead peasant explained from his place behind Percival. "Mother loved us. All that matters, eh?" Looking back at Arthur, he smiled sympathetically. "I s'pose you wouldn't know 'bout that. Word about the forest is your mother's passed on."

Percival leaned down from his horse to cuff the boy across the head. "Mind your tongue," he snapped.

Eni pouted in a way that reminded Arthur so much of Merlin it made him a bit ill. "A'right. Ye gods, man, you've got a 'eavy 'and."

"Is she there?" Arthur ventured to ask. "In the forest? Have you seen my mother?"

Looking up at him, still rubbing at his head with one hand, Eni shook his head, smiling gently once more. "No. I imagine she died content. Nobody in the forest died contentedly."

"I thought you said your life it wasn't so terrible," Arthur said.

"'T'wasn't," Eni replied. "Lots o' masters are cruel, mine weren't. But I was seventeen and lost and wanted my mother."

Ahead of them, the road spilt in a Y, and Eni tugged at the reins of Gwen's horse, urging them down the less travelled road that continued to hug the river. Apple trees blossomed along the river bank and a rainbow array of wildflowers grew up from the water. Yellow toadflax and cowslip grew alongside purple foxglove and white hogweed and, beside him on her horse, Gwen sighed at the pastoral beauty. The road, still muddy from the spring melt, followed the river's curves and bends until, ahead, Arthur saw a large, stone building built alongside the river, a giant waterwheel turning lazily in the water fed through the leet.

"You'll find yer friend yonder," Eni said, letting go of Gwen's reins and smiling genially.

Arthur nodded, silently thanking the boy. Then, like a candle being huffed out, Eni disappeared from sight. Repressing a shiver, the prince straightened in the saddle, "Right, let's go."

The three rode towards to the mill, Gwen tying the horses to the bough of a nearby apple tree. A cart sat in front of the mill, half-filled with sacks of flour, and from inside they could hear the sound of a man shouting orders, followed by a deep, jovial laugh as someone else yelped and then swore loudly. Arthur caught Percival smirking as the three of them inched foward. "Hello?" Arthur called inside.

"Hello!" shouted the voice from before, friendly and loud. "Come in, friends!"

"Do you suppose it's safe?" Percival asked.

"Eni said we'd find Merlin here," Gwen reminded them.

Growling in frustration, Arthur replied, "Eni was also a ghost, one of things that Merlin was afraid of in the forest." Looking back at his companions, both waiting for him to come to his decisions, he never felt more confused. Then, he thought about Gaius weeping when he'd told him of Merlin's plummet into the river-if there was a chance Merlin still lived, he would take any risk to find him. "C'mon. Stay behind me."

Cautiously, the three stepped inside the mill. It was darker inside, and far cooler, but smelled of a strange mix of river water, sweat and grain that made Arthur scrunch up his nose in disgust. The ceiling was low, and Arthur found himself ducking and weaving around the various moving parts. Never in his life had Arthur been in a noisier place. Squinting in the gloom, he searched the room for the source of the voice. "Hello?"

"Hello." Arthur turned quickly to find a tall, blonde man standing at the base of a steep staircase. He looked to be about as old as his father, but carried none of the scars, only a series of fine lines around his eyes and a few silver hairs that hung, long and straight, around his ears. "I haven't seen you around these parts before. I'm Odo. Can I help you?"

"Yes," Gwen said, before Arthur could reply. "We're looking for a friend of ours, Merlin. We were told we might find him here."

The man stiffened but then quickly composed himself, shaking his head, looking apologetic. "I don't know anyone by that name, I'm afraid. Are you sure you've got the right place?"

Arthur opened his mouth to reply, but never got the chance. At that moment, a familiar figure climbed down the staircase behind the man. Barefoot and shirtless, the young man looked over at the three people standing in the middle of the mill before looking up at Odo curiously. "Who is it, Father?"

And, then, all hell broke loose.

* * *

Harvey had felt something new tug on his magic long before he heard the pounding of horses' hooves outside the mill. The whisper in his mind kept time with the beating of his heart. _He's coming, he's coming. _It sent his nerves humming and made his hairs stand on end, prickling on the arms and the back of his neck. It had been distracting and he'd dropped more than one bag of grain on his bare toes that day.

When the riders had appeared, calling into the open door of the mill, his father had ordered to stay put and climbed down the staircase. Harvey lay down on the floor and pressed his ear against the warm grain of the wood, straining to hear, but the words were muffled and indeciferable. Again, his magic tugged at him. _He's here, he's here. Find him._

So, Harvey obeyed. He climbed down the stairs, casting a glance at the three riders standing clustered together across the room before he laid a hand on his father's broad shoulder. He flinched when Odo turned to glare at him disapproving, but persisted in asking, "Who is it, Father?"

Across the way, a dark-skinned young woman, her skin freckled and curls framing her face gave a gasp. "Oh, Merlin! It's you!" She took a step forward, as if to embrace him and Harvey felt his father shove him behind him, holding out an arm to stop the girl. In response, Harvey watched the girl's smile crumple and found it made his chest ache. "Merlin?"

He shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm sorry, you've mistaken me for someone else. My name's Harvey."

From beside the woman, a finely-dressed young man surged forward. For a moment, Harvey thought he looked familiar, but he stamped down that feeling when the man grabbed his father by his collar. "What sort of enchantment is this?" he demanded, shaking him. "What have you done to him?"

"I've done nothing," Odo insisted.

"You've changed him. I could have you executed for such things in this kindgom!"

"Leave him alone!" shrieked Harvey, pushing past his father to drive the flats of his palms hard against the man's chest. He struggled to keep his magic from boiling over with his anger as threw back an arm to punch the man, only to find his fist easily caught and his arm twisted painfully up his back. "Let me go! Let go!"

He was tossed uncermoniously into the arms of the third rider, a man with arms that riveled Harvey's torso in circumfrence and held him like a vice. Harvey kicked and fought, trying desperately to fling himself at the blonde man as he drew his sword and pointed it at his father. "You will undo what you have done to my servant or I will cut you down where you stand," the blonde man hissed. Harvey threw himself against the third rider's grip, viciously clawing at his skin of his arms to get away. When his father didn't deign to reply, the blonde figure angerily brought his sword down on his arm, drawing a deep cut. "Answer me!"

"I cannot," Odo replied. "I've done nothing to the boy."

The man sheathed his sword with an angry growl. "Then with my powers as crowned prince of Camelot, I'm arresting you for the unlawful imprisonment of a member of my household."

Harvey shrieked and shouted obscenities at the blonde man, the crown prince of Camelot, as he watched him rope his father's hands roughly together in front of him. The third rider only tightened his grip on him in response, forcing Harvey to stop struggling as he found it difficult to breath. The two men marched Harvey and his father out of the mill, dragging them towards their horses. The girl followed behind them, gnawing her thumb nervously.

From inisde their little house Aldith came running out. Brandishing a kitchen knife like a nobleman's sword, she threw herself at the crown prince, who was shoving her father alone towards the horses. The prince quickly drew his sword and swiftly knocked the knife from her deft hands, pointing the tip of his blade to his sister's throat. "Gwen," he ordered. "Bring her as well, she may know something."

"She's nothing to do with this!" his father shouted, at the same time that Harvey tried once again to hurl himself at the blonde man. The girl, Gwen, inched forward and began stoically tying Aldith's wrists together with a length of braided rope. "Leave her alone!"

Struggling against his captors, Harvey spat on the blonde man's boots. "I will make you suffer for this."

The blonde prince looked down at the gob of spittle marring the toe of his leather boot and frowned before closing the gap between them. He took Harvey's face in his hands, squinting at him as if searching for something, and Harvey swore he saw something like sorrow flicker across the crowned prince's features . Underneath the prince's fingertips, Harvey's skin prickled, his magic answering some silent call. "The Merlin I knew would never say such things, but, don't worry, we'll save you."


	5. Chapter 5

They tied him into the saddle with the prince sitting behind him; they called him Merlin and tried to sooth him and convince him that they were friends, that they knew him. He refused to believe it. He didn't want to be their friend, they had arrested his father and sister and were now forcing them to march behind them, tied to the horses. He vacillated between shouting out threats and pleading with them to release his family, though it only seemed to harden their resolve. Everytime he began to build up his magic, allowing it to course through his veins and tingle at the tips of his fingers, his father would bark out the sharp order, "No, Harvey" and he would settle back down, momentarily chastised.

If they ever got out of this predicament he was going to get _such _a thrashing.

Besides when he was shouting at his captors, the journey was quiet and the riders reserved. Every so often, Harvey could feel one of them ride closer, their fingers brushing at his bare arm, raising goosebumps. It was only after they'd ridden many miles before Harvey realized they were checking to see if he was real, and present. The haunted look on their faces made him uneasy.

The little whisper in his mind was beating like a drum._ Found, found, found. Whole, whole. _Just underneath his skin, his magic rippled and sparked in jubilation, even as Harvey's broken self fought against his kidnappers.

Camelot's castle rose up gloriously into the sky, with pennants displaying the Pendragon banner waving on every spire and turret, but the sight of it only made Harvey fight harder. When they reached the courtyard of the citadel, the prince dragged him roughly down from the saddle. Turning towards two nearby guards, he began barking out orders. "Take those two to the dungeons and see that there's a guard placed on them."

The guards nodded even as Harvey shouted, "No!" and wrenched out the prince's arms. He threw himself at his father and sister and, with his wrists still bound in front of him, Odo looped his arms around Harvey and pulled him close. "They can't do this!" Harvey cried as Aldith buried her face into his shoulder. He kissed his sister's head even at the same time his father pressed a kiss to his cheek and a half dozen guards descended onto the little family. Harvey could hear the crown prince shouting as the man with the tree-trunk arms latched onto his arms, pulling him out from the safe circle of his father's arms and thrusting him back towards the prince. Harvey turned around, pleading with guards as they dragged his father and sister to the dungeons. As his family was bullied out of sight, the prince grabbed onto Harvey's arm and began dragging him away, a sickened expression on his face as Harvey wept into his hands and swore at him with each gasping sob.

Inside the castle, the prince threw a small door open in the cramped hallway and shoved Harvey into a chair. "Arthur!" gasped a familiar voice. "Is this real?" There was the sound of feet crossing the room and suddenly Harvey could feel gentle, sandpapery hands run down his arms and chest, feeling for injuries. The hands stopped at his legs where angry, red welts were still fading from when Odo had taken the switch to him. "Who did this to you?"

Harvey dropped his hands away from his face. Sitting in front of him was an old man, his white hair long and looking unwashed, his eyes tired and shining with unshed tears, but Harvey felt comforted by his smile. Something inside of him awoke, and the little voice whispered in his mind. _Friend. Trust. _

"Merlin, who did this to you?" the old man demanded.

The good feelings in Harvey shriveled. "My father," he replied. He hiccupped and tried to wipe away the tears, but only ended up weeping all over again at the thought of Odo. "I was disobedient."

"Your father..." the old man repeated, confused. "But Merlin your father is dead. He passed this last year. You must remember."

The prince, Arthur, scoffed. "That's the trouble, Gaius, he doesn't seem to remember anything. Not even himself. I believe he's been enchanted."

Squinting at him, the old man reached up and gently took one of his hands in both of his. "Will you tell me your name?"

"Harvey," he sniffled. "Son of Odo the Miller."

The old man sighed, looking suddenly older. For a moment, Harvey felt guilty. "And how old are you?"

"Nineteen."

Arthur threw up his hands in frustration. "You see, Gaius! It's like he's not even Merlin any longer. Just this odd lump of a peasant."

Harvey watched the prince begin to pace back and forth across the floor of the physician's chambers. He found himself leaning towards the old leech, Gaius, for comfort as he quietly let his anger towards the prince simmer with his magic. Perhaps he'd levitate him right through the roof of the castle and into the sky to leave him as the mercy of the carrion birds. That would show the prat.

"Arthur, would you mind giving myself and Merlin here some privacy?" Gaius asked. "I would like a moment alone with him, now that we've got him back."

"But, you haven't-" the prince began to argue, but the old man arched a single eyebrow and Harvey watched in awe as Arthur's resolve crumped under the gaze. "Yes, all right. I'll return after dinner." He then marched _royally _out of the room and shut the door forcefully behind him.

"Now," said Gaius, letting go of Harvey's hand. "Why don't you tell me everything, hmm? From the beginning."

And because the voice kept pounding inside his head (_Trust him. Friend_) and because the old man was so kind and looked at him with such paternal adoration, he did. He told him everything, from waking up after the accident, to Arthur's arrival at the mill just hours earlier. "They took them away; they're going to kill them. You have to help them, please, sir."

"You don't know that, Merlin," Gaius replied.

"Father said!" he protested. "He said that if they think you have magic, they'll kill you."

He watched the old physician draw a long breath, and let it out slowly, sinking further into his seat, still clasping Harvey's hand. "Oh, my boy," he sighed. "I was not expecting this, those nights when I prayed that I would have you back with me, even injured."

Harvey shook his head. He couldn't bear to hear any more of people mourning the loss of their Merlin. "I want my family. I want to go home," he pleaded.

"You are home, Merlin," the old man said.

Harvey pulled away from the old man, put his head in his hands, and tried very hard not to cry again.

* * *

"I want to know everything," Arthur demanded.

He was standing outside the dungeon cell of the miller and his daughter, whose face was buried in her father's shoulder as she wept piteously. Odo on the other hand stared up at the prince, looking enraged. "What have you done with my son?"

"Merlin is not your son!" he shouted.

The miller took a calming breath, pausing to look down at the girl in his arms and wipe away her tears with his thumbs. "There is more to family than just blood," Odo replied.

Arthur growled, turning away to face the length of the little dungeon corridor once. He had been prepared to find Merlin injured and recovering in some small village, he had even prepared himself for finding the remains of his body washed up on the banks of the river, half-ravaged by animals, but never had he expected Merlin to be _not Merlin_. The heartbreaking display the family had acted out in the courtyard, when Arthur had wrenched his manservant away from the suspected sorcerer, had left Arthur unsettled. Merlin truly believed these people were his family.

"You've made Merlin believe that he is your son, that you are his father. How? What manner of enchantment did you use?"

Odo grinned, but somehow it looked false and tired. "No enchantment, sire. He came to us with an empty mind to fill."

"That's not possible."

"And yet I speak the truth."

"You kept him from us!" Arthur shouted. "We thought he was dead!"

The miller stood up, crossing the cell to look Arthur in the eye. "Sire, I am a good man and the boy that you call Merlin I loved like my own child. I didn't know where he came from or that he belonged to you, I only saw his body slip under my wheel in time to drag him from the waters, but not before he'd stopped breathing. I tell you, I thought he was already dead, but then he suddenly drew breath and I felt the same relief I felt when Aldith drew her first breaths. It was as if he were mine from the moment I brought him inside my house."

Arthur squinted at the man, suspicious. "Assuming I believe your story, why would take a stranger into your home?"

"Because it's a blessing to do so," Odo replied. "Besides, I could tell that boy was something special. He cannot not remember his name or a single moment of his life, but he proved to be a good son and a caring brother."

"You said he was injured?"

Odo nodded. "Aye, sire. He was bruised, and for the first week, it pained him to draw breath and not once did he open his eyes." Arthur nodded, feeling sickened by the descriptions of his manservant's injuries, but he studiously committed everything the miller said to memory, to inform Gaius of later. "His head was stove in, you see, sire," Odo explained. "We feared he might never wake, but he healed remarkably. It was not long before he was able to help me in the mill."

"Why would you keep him?" Arthur asked. "Why wouldn't you seek out his family elsewhere?"

The miller hesitated, casting a glance at his daughter, who made a quick series of gestures to him before shrugging exaggeratedly. Finally, the man replied, "I was...concerned, sire. I did not want to send so vulnerable a man away with someone who claimed to be family, when he could not coabberate such a claim."

Nodding, Arthur couldn't help but mentally agree with the man's answer. The world was full of unscrupulous men who would eagerly take advantage of someone like Merlin when he was in such a vulnerable state. Anyone could have claimed him as family and then later sold him as a slave, or used him as their own servant and beat him like a dog at mealtimes while abusing him at night. As much as Merlin naturally seemed to feel the need to protect people, so did he instill the need in others to ruthlessly protect him. Arthur couldn't help but feel minutely glad that the miller had kept Merlin.

"Surely, though," Arthur reasoned, "what makes a man himself is not held inside his skull. A soul is more complex than that."

"I do not know, sire," replied Odo.

There was a long pause. Inside the dank cell the miller and his daughter waited upon their judgment with bated breath. Arthur saw Odo stiffen as he squared his shoulders to face the prisoners, "I do not believe that a man's self can be contained in the body in such way that it may be so easily destroyed," he said, staring down at the miller. "You will lift this enchantment off of Merlin or suffer the full wrath of this kingdom's laws."

Turning away, he walked stiffly away and refused to look back as the sound of the daughter's weeping echoed around the dungeon. He would have Merlin back.


	6. Chapter 6

"There," Gaius said, fussing over the tunic hanging off of Harvey's shoulders, "you look much more like your old self now."

Harvey twisted the fabric in his hands, plucked at loose threads along the hem. "I want my father," he said, petulantly.

"Merlin..." sighed the old man.

"It's Harvey," Harvey insisted. The tunic itched, but smelled familiar and comforting, like the old man's herbs and spices along with the vague, musty scent of books and that made him uncomfortable. He didn't want to believe the voice in his head that said _Home. Safe. _Home was the mill and the little house by the river. Home was sitting by his mother's barrow with Aldith and sucking the sweet nectar from the flowers as she patiently taught him her gestures. Home was cooling off in the shallows of the river with Odo after working all day in the mill. Despite how content his magic seemed there, he refused to accept the familiarity of the place.

"Merlin-" the old man began, but at Harvey's sharp look he started again: "My boy, don't you know me at all?"

Carefully, Harvey nodded. "I dream about you. You step out from behind the golden man and embrace me. You said things like 'I'm very proud of you' and 'you mean a great deal to me', all the things that I know really meant 'I love you'. We never said it, I sort of remember that, and I can't help now but think that's terribly stupid."

Gaius sighed. "Indeed. But is there nothing else?"

Harvey shrugged. "It smells familiar. Nostalgic." He looked at the old physician and squared his shoulders. "But that doesn't change anything, you know. Even if you tie me down or lock me away, I'll find a way out and I'll find my family and we'll escape. I won't be kept prisoner here!"

"Merlin-"

"My name is Harvey!"

"Enough!" Gaius cried. "Now, you are not a prisoner, Merlin, you're home. Everyone here is only concerned for your health. And I have no doubt that in your current state you will try to escape, so let me make myself perfectly clear in saying that if you try it I will not hesitate in drugging you unconscious. But if you promise to behave I will try and allow you to see the miller and his daughter."

Harvey set his jaw stubbornly and crossed his arms, studying the old leech who mirrored his stance opposite him, eyebrow raised disapprovingly. The stare was so hard and constant that Harvey soon found himself begin to wilt under the old man's gaze and he heaved a great sigh and nodded once, showing that he would agree to the man's terms-_for now_.

"Good," said the physician. "Now, what else do you remember?"

"Nothing."

"Come now, you've done surprisingly well in remembering things so far, you must remember something else," Gaius encouraged.

"I don't want to remember," Harvey said. "I'm happy. I have a father and a sister who love me. I have a life I'm content in. I have a house and everything I could ever need. I am the son of a free man, sir. I don't want to remember just to realize that all of it's been a lie, when I love that lie so much."

"We need you back, Merlin," Gaius said, resting a gentle hand against his cheek.

Harvey flinched away from the old man's cool touch. "I'm sorry, you'll have to find someone else."

"No, it can only be you," the leech insisted. "You have a great destiny."

Harvey shot out of his seat and marched across the room. "I don't want a great destiny! I want my life back!"

"And we're trying to give it to you!"

"Well, I don't want that life!" he shrieked.

The old man slammed his hand down against the nearby table with surprising force. A tiny bottle fell from the edge, shattering on the ground, brown gel oozing into the cracks in the floor boards. "You don't get to choose, Merlin!" he shouted. Drawing in a calming breath, he carried on. "We are given the lives we are given, for better or for worse, and we cannot simply choose another."

Harvey squared his shoulders again. "Yes, but it seems I have a chance to."

He turned his back on the old physician, crossing his arms like some stubborn child. The silence dragged on for several long moments before Gaius said, "Her name is Hunith, your mother." The statement hung in the air, heavy and weighted. The tightness in Harvey's chest seemed suddenly greater than before and he found himself drawing a shuddery breath. Gaius's voice was sharp and reprimanding. "And she's positively sick with grief. She thinks you're dead, Merlin—are you really going to let her continue to grieve because you won't acknowledge the truth before your eyes?"

Harvey shook his head. "No," he protested weakly. Inside, he magic ebbed and flowed like waves on the shore, soothing his grief and encouraging the confusing memories he was so desperately trying stave off. "My mother is dead."

"No, she isn't. And you know it," he said, marching across the room stand in front of Harvey. "You are Merlin. You are twenty-one years old and you're a servant, not a miller, though I dare say you are a very poor one."

A memory, alarming clear and distinct from all else, rose to the surface in Harvey's fractured mind. "Arthur used to tell me that." Moaning in frustration, Harvey put his head down on the table.

There was a quiet knock on the door to the physician's chambers before it opened slowly, revealing a cluster of knights. "Is this a bad time?"

* * *

Arthur stomped back into Gaius's chambers exactly one hour after he had left to find Merlin sitting on the edge of the bed, Gwaine and Lancelot on either side of him while Gaius, Percival, Elyan and Leon all sat at the table, sipping what was most assuredly _not _mere tea out of tarnished goblets. Ignoring how Leon and Lancelot scrambled to stand up, he stormed across the room and took hold of his manservant's face in his hands.

"Sire!" Lancelot protested.

Arthur ignored him, running his hands through Merlin's short, sable hair. It'd grown longer in the time he was missing and tangled around Arthur's fingers as he continued his clinical examination of his servant's skull. Jerking, Merlin tried to maneuver out of his grip, causing Arthur to latch onto Merlin's shoulders momentarily. "Stop it! I'm trying to examine you!" he snapped.

"Well, don't!" Merlin snapped back.

Carrying on anyway, Arthur ran his hands along the hairline around Merlin's ears and near his temple. "What's this?" he asked, running his fingers along the small divet on Merlin's temple, near his left eye.

Even as Merlin tried to bat his hand away, Gaius was already across the room and at his side, brushing his fingertips along Merlin's temple. Arthur noted that Merlin didn't fight Gaius at all on this, a fact which thoroughly irritated him. "It seems that Merlin suffered an injury here."

"As if his head was stove in?"

Gaius' head snapped toward him, and he squinted suspiciously at him. "What are you not telling me?"

Arthur sighed. "The miller-he said Merlin couldn't remember a thing when he found him."

"It's true!" Merlin insisted, but Gaius and Arthur ignored him.

"The miller said Merlin's head had been stove in," Arthur explained. "He seemed to believe it to be the cause of his memory loss."

"Have you ever heard of such a thing?" asked Arthur.

Gaius shook his head. "No, sire. Surely, a blow to the head would confuse a man, but to erase his memory entirely..."

"I've heard of it." All attention was turned to Gwaine, who stood up, keeping one hand on Merlin's shoulder. "There was a man in Mercia who I heard about in my travels. He was kicked in the head by his own horse. They said he would die, but he didn't, and when he woke up he was changed. He could not remember his wife or children, or even his name. There were other symptoms, but from what I understand he was not the same man again."

Arthur gestured to Merlin. "You think that's what happened to him?"

"_He _is sitting right here, thank you very much," Merlin groused.

"It's possible," Gaius replied, nodding.

"He's not enchanted?" the prince probed.

"Odo would never enchant me!"

The prince stopped, ears perking at Merlin's choice in words. "Odo?"

"It seems we've had a bit of a breakthrough," Gaius replied dryly. "Merlin has begun to remember a few things, though he is certainly still confused about many things and by no means remembering everything."

"Unsurprising," snorted Arthur. Merlin growled in annoyance; Arthur ignored him. "But the injury, could it have affected his mind like this?"

Gaius looked thoughtful. "I can't be sure. Merlin has always healed so quickly, I won't be able to tell the extent of his previous injuries and since he'll most likely be unable to tell me, I cannot give a definitive answer. The only one who could, sire, is the miller."

The prince let out a frustrated growl and spun away, dragging his fingers through his hair. "But how can I be certain he is telling the truth? I can I be sure he has not bewitched Merlin somehow?"

"_Still _right here."

"I suppose," mused Gaius, "we'll have to wait for the enchantment to take its course. Without contact with Merlin, a sorcerer could not keep up the spell."

There was a soft _hush _in the room and Arthur caught sight of Merlin leaping to pull a bundle of St. John's wart from the rafters, before he had time to pull his knife from his belt. "Y'aven't got that sorta time now," said Eni, bursting into existence like a candle being lit. He stood in the middle of Gaius' chambers, casting furtive glances over his shoulder, while trying to eye up the assortment of knights who all leapt to their feet at his sudden appearance. He pressed a finger against the tip of Leon's blade, seemingly unimpressed. "Best put that thing away, beggin' yer pardon, sir. I gots some impor'ant news for you."

Gaius looked uncertain where he stood, trying in vain to muscle Merlin behind him. "Arthur?"

"It's all right, Gaius," Arthur replied. "He's a friend."

"Too right!" Eni shouted. "And I'm here to tell you that you that they're comin'."

"Who's coming?"

"E'ryone, sir! The entire forest. E'ery last, nasty creature is coming here. She wasn't nice. The lady, the nice lady who done pull my soul from my body-she weren't so nice after all. She's leading 'em, sir," Eni stammered. "She said-she said you're a traitor. She had to stand up 'n' be counted." Suddenly there was a _snap_, like the crackle of a fire, and Eni looked over his shoulder, eyes widening at something unseen. "I have to go!" he gasped, and disappeared.

There was a long pause, as everyone stared at the stop that Eni had just occupied, before Arthur looked over at pale form of his supposedly brain-damaged manservant.

"Shit."


	7. Chapter 7

The prince ripped the St. John's wart from Harvey's grip, annoyed, and threw it onto the nearby bench where Percival picked it up and absently began toying with the bundle. "Every last creature, sire," the knight whispered. "How are we supposed to defend ourselves against that?"

"With piss and luck," Gwaine replied. Harvey huffed out a laugh. Since his entrance, Gwaine had done nothing but alternate between fussing over him and sharing bawdy, off-color anecdotes, but Harvey could see now that there was much more to the roguish knight. He was loyal and courageous and Harvey couldn't help but admire him.

Arthur sighed. "We'll need more than luck to battle that which is already dead."

"We've done it before," argued Lancelot. He had a hand resting on his sword, ready and willing to go into battle at that very moment. It seemed a common character trait amongst the knights.

Nodding, Arthur began to pace the floor of Gaius's work shop in such an _insufferable_ way that Harvey had repeatedly step out of the way every time the prince made a new loop around the room. "Aye," Arthur agreed. "We've done it before, but they were a different sort of creature then. Those men of Cenred's were still men, real and solid and when I went to slay them my sword actually _stuck_. These…ghosts and wights, as Merlin called them—"

"I never said that!"

"Shut up, Merlin, of course you did," Arthur snipped. "As I was saying, these creatures are ghosts. No more solid than mist."

"But, sire, I myself have touched Eni!" Percival argued.

Harvey looked up at the prince, who seemed momentarily nonplussed. "Cross-eyed with confusion" as his fath—as _Odo_would have said. He watched as Arthur paced another loop around the room and when Harvey could not move out of the way quickly enough that time, he stopped in front of him, staring into his eyes with a look both frustrated and forlorn. His hand fluttered, briefly, at Harvey's temple before it dropped back to his side. "He cried out, didn't he?" the prince asked Percival, never taking his eyes off Harvey.

"Aye, sire," the knight replied. "When I struck him."

"Bully," Harvey spat.

Gaius took a step forward, settling in front of the massive knight. "Let me see your hand, Sir Percival—the one you struck Eni with." Percival offered up his hand and everyone watched silently as the old leech turned it over and over, studying it with as much curiosity as some specimen from a magical creature. Harvey knew from experience that there was nothing remarkable about it, save that it was large, the man's fingers being able to wrap entirely around his forearm. Gaius, though, seemed interested in something else. "How long have you had this?" he asked, indicating a little chain around Percival's wrist. It was a plain braided chain with a crudely carved charm dangling from one of the links. Looking at it, Harvey could feel a dull throb underneath his skin, something that he'd missed before, and he wondered, briefly, what it would feel like to touch the little charm.

Percival looked away, drawing a breath. "It was my wife's. It'd been a gift from her mother; she'd had it since she was a child. When she was—when she died, I couldn't bear to think that I would have nothing to remember her by, so I took it." Looking up at the physician, he asked, "Why?"

"The charm is made of iron. It's a common belief that iron can repel evil spirits," Gaius replied. "Perhaps this _Eni_felt you strike him because you were wearing the charm."

Harvey nodded. "Yes, it's true! Aldith always hung iron objects about the house." He remembered when he'd still been bedridden, his body aching and thoughts muzzy, seeing a horseshoe hung over the little house's door, sitting slightly askew on a rusty nail. During those times, Aldith had looked at him with such an expression of concern that it scared him; once, after changing the bandages around his head, she'd hung a pair of iron scissors over his bed and made a gesture to him which he later understand to mean _protect_. "Herbs help, too."

"Right," said Arthur. "So, all we have to do is—" A warning bell began ringing outside. "Damn." The door was suddenly flung open, cutting off the prince as Gwen stumbled into the room, gasping for breath. "Gwen?"

"Arthur," she gasped, hurrying forward and taking his hand. "There are men outside, thousands of men with horrible faces. They just appeared outside the walls, gathered together like mist." She cast a glance over at Merlin where he sat looking up at her with wide eyes. "There's a woman, like the one you described, she's screaming out there, sire, screaming for the death of the traitor."

The man moved strode across the room, tugging the other knights to their feet. "Gather all the iron you can, anything you can use as a weapon," he ordered. "And gather the men, they need to know what we're up against." When none of them rushed to do as commanded, he turned on them, shouting, "Quickly!" As they rushed out of the room, Arthur turned to Gwen. "Stay here. Protect Gaius and Merlin."

Turning to follow his knights, Harvey reached out and dared to grab hold of his arm. "Wait! What about my family?"

"They're not your family, Merlin. They can wait."

* * *

Arthur marched out of Gaius' chamber, shouting orders for his knights to gather all the iron implements they could find. "And bring herbs as well! Bring the blacksmiths, have them melt the metals down."

"Sire?" Leon asked, eyebrow arched. "I don't understand."

"If those creatures are injured with iron, then we'll give them iron, all right," replied the prince. "Tell the servants they'll be needed to create a perimeter with the iron. The leftover melt will be used to make arrowheads. Those ghosts will not set foot inside this castle."

The men nodded, dashing off down various corridors to collect iron from the castle's occupants. Word of the strange orders swept quickly through the castle and soon servants could be found collecting keys, scissors, charms, skillets and even the locks from their doors. Suddenly, charms and runes, which had been so carefully hidden from sight since the time of the Great Purge, were hung above windows and carved into doorposts as Camelot prepared to fight an army for which they had little defense.

Elyan began organizing the town's blacksmiths, gathering the men together in the bowels of Camelot castle where they created impromptu forges from long-abandoned hearths, rushing to create fires hot enough to melt the metals brought to them. Men pumped great bellows in front of the fire, and desperately broke apart the abandoned furniture they found there in the dark to build the flames higher and raise the temperature. The room soon became almost too hot to bear; the smoke thick and smell abominable so that servants coughed and wheezed when they rushed to bring the men basketfuls of iron objects. Still, the men carried on, beating household items into crude little dirks and arrowheads which they quickly doused in cool water and threw into the corridor to be collected.

"Certainly isn't my best work," Elyan shouted over the din of hammer pounding metal, "but it might just kill the dead!"

The knights, guards and able-bodied servants all stood along the ramparts and lined themselves in front of the city gates, waiting for their ghostly enemy to come sweeping in like a Western wind. The young men shivered in fear while the Christians crossed themselves and the pagans kissed their icons and charms. It seemed, for a moment, that the entirety of Camelot was holding its breath.

In the courtyard, everyone watched as a woman, wrists and neck bedecked in tarnished jewels and old charms made from feather and bone, stood and screamed out threats and promises towards the battlements. She pointed a long, crooked finger towards where Arthur stood. "You protect the traitor, all of you! But no longer! Camelot will suffer for what it has done to magic, and he shall burn—the boy shall burn like those he condemned as he stood by and watched. Murderer! Traitor!"

Atop the battlements, Arthur calmly turned towards Sir Leon. "Tell the archers to ready their bows."

"Sire? It's just one woman."

Arthur shook his head. "No, I don't believe it will be so simple."

* * *

Down below, inside the Castle, Harvey-who-was-now-Merlin coughed once to disguise a simple sleeping spell he'd managed to recall. He watched Gwen and Gaius yawned and sunk down where they stood to fall asleep on the dusty floor.

Ten seconds passed, then thirty. He held his breath but nothing happened. After nearly a full minute, he was satisfied with the spell enough to dare to leave the physician's chambers. He snatched a little paring knife and a pair of iron scissors that felt hot in his palm before racing out the door.

He didn't care if Odo wasn't his proper father or Aldith his real sister—he was going save them.


End file.
